I Heart Faces. Beautiful B&W.

It might be shameful to confess as a mother, but tending to the children's hygiene is not my favorite part of parenthood. Baths, hair brushing and teeth brushing don't float my boat. (Which is why I willingly abdicate many of these chores to my husband!) Thankfully, the girls seem to think dental health is fun. And there is not much required on my part other than spreading the toothpaste.

This is the first Monthly Photo Challenge with cash and prizes...like I needed any more pressure when trying to decide which shot to enter! Share your Beautiful B&W entry over at I Heart Faces and cross your fingers for a Tamron lens or $100 cash! Click the link below to participate:

Failure (a look back)

I came across this draft version of a post I started October 19, 2011. Almost five months ago. I remember all these thoughts. I remember how I felt:

"My hands have been poised on the keyboard for several minutes and my mind is jumping from thought to thought. All negative. I try to grab on to one of them and develop it into a blog post, but I feel like I am groveling for attention, in a desperate, tacky way. But writing is how I straighten out these tumbling, disorganized thoughts.

I am not asking, "Does this dress make me look fat?" hoping you exclaim quickly how beautiful I am. I am dumping my heart. Maybe the ugliness can float away as the feelings grow into words.

I see masses of failure when I look at myself. At least when I am feeling the way I am right now. I see the anorexic who really wasn't that thin. I see the star pupil who was accepted to the Naval Academy but didn't go. I see the Cum Laude diploma for the stay at home mom. I see a lack of discipline when it comes to eating and exercise. I see the photographer who satisfied the statistic of folding her business in three years. I see two little girls who need someone who mothers better than I do. I see an infinitely patient husband who walks on eggshells around me.

But what do I feel? Seriously, what do I really feel? I live as a steady flat line, with some serious valleys. No highs. No glee. No exuberance. I don't feel much at all. I try to be invisible. Moving about silently in the background, making sure the house is tidy, the clothes are clean and the children are fed. And then I retreat to my corner, hoping not to be disturbed. I spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing myself, trying vainly to decipher the moodiness and the desire to shrink away to nothingness.

I am so very uncertain of my purpose. Some days I sense that I was intended to do something bigger than I really am. Most days, though, I feel like I am here to be a highly educated, exceptionally organized, military trained caretaker. I cannot explain why this is a struggle for me. I see other women, equally gifted, equally educated, who fully embrace their life and honestly love it. LOVE it. That only serves to make me feel more inadequate and more dissatisfied with my lousy attitude.

The internal battle rages. Silently, but not without its victims. I see the impact of these tiny salvos in my children's lives. If I can just hang on for 16 more years..."

Right now, at this moment, I feel none of these things. At least not so strongly. I still have my misgivings and self doubts. But they are not all consuming. And I had a mini-epiphany the other night: I can control the life I live. Not the things that might happen to me, but the way I handle it, the way I go through my day to day. I am an adult, capable of creating an amazing atmosphere in my home for my family. Capable of holding dance parties with iTunes in the computer room. Capable of laughter and understanding and permission to my kids to be kids. I can make that choice.

I'm not saying everything is roses. And the rain never falls. But instead of rejecting the idea of playing in the rain, I suit my girls up in raincoats, rubber boots and umbrellas and let them stomp and splash to their childish hearts' content.

I do have reservations that the negative will blindside me at any moment. I have lived with that as my strongest companion for far too long. It is hard for me to accept happiness at face value. But right now, I am accepting it. And it feels glorious. Even on the rainy days.

Shooting

I shot roughly 2000 frames in the latter half of February. Not the whole month, just the last two weeks. 2000. That's a whole lotta pictures.

Some of them were of the girls. Playing dress up. Playing whirling dervish (a spectacular game that does, indeed, leave a wake of destruction). Playing Music Director, complete with pots for drums and metal lids for cymbals. These are the pictures I want as a mom.

I took pictures of the one and only significant snowfall this winter. (And the first big snow I have seen in nearly 10 years.) I went outside as the sun was rising, dressed in my pajamas, robe and untied sneakers, toting my tripod and camera up and down the street in front of my house, searching for just the right angles. Later, after a very hasty breakfast consumed by an extraordinarily eager 5 year old, I took pictures of my daughter personifying joy. These are the pictures I hoped would be artistic and beautiful.

One week after the snow fell, I walked to pick my daughter up from school. We played on the playground for well over an hour, then ambled home along a wooded path that follows the creek. In short sleeves. These are the pictures that remind me to soak up the sun.

Soccer is immensely popular in Lexington and that makes my stepson's heart happy. Right before the start of high school team tryouts, he participated in the First Annual Conway Cup, in support of his history teacher's husband who was recently diagnosed with ALS. Yes, I wanted to try out my new 70-200mm lens, which is acclaimed to be a great sports lens. But I also wanted to make sure the Conway family had quality images to show them how the town rallied around them in their time of need. These are the pictures that probably mean far more to someone else than they do to me.

Sometimes, as a stay at home mom, I grow restless. I don't want to wander the aisles of Wal-Mart, just to say I left the house that day. I don't want to bake cookies. I don't want to watch tv. I don't know what I want. So I take pictures of whatever is handy. Often, as any who follow me know, that turns out to be my daughter. I try to capture her artfully, purposefully. These are the pictures that allow me to practice.

Every picture has its own purpose. I know I won't fully appreciate the value of many of my images until months or years later. But I do know enough to know I will want them. So I have stopped trying to censure my trigger happy, shutter snapping finger. I am happy when I am shooting. And I am happy when I am looking at my pictures. That is reason and purpose enough.

The Dinner Hour

Ah, dinner time. The family seated around the table, a well thought out, nutritious meal ready to be enjoyed, calm filling the house as we join hands in prayer.

I wish. Reality is such a far cry from the Cleaver Household that lives in my imagination. Yes, the family is seated at the table after a few requests followed by a few more emphatic "requests." Yes, there is a meal. If meal means edible food. And yes, we do join hands in prayer.

But before all of that, in the hour that leads up to the pastoral scene of familial bliss, I have this:

1. A pint sized pineapple pilferer.

2. Two ladies a'leaping.

3. Love freely given and not so happily received.

4. Signs of starvation leading to rectification through "any and all means necessary."

Yet when all the dust settles and the little ones play footsies under the table, I don't mind the Rivera Household quite as much as I did 10 minutes earlier.

Sun Lenses

Childhood fancies are delightful. They are capricious, whimsical and done simply because they make the child happy.

Like the latest desire to wear colorful dime store "sun lenses" all day long. Who am I to fight with this cuteness and try to impose my adult view that sunglasses inside Wal-Mart is unnecessary? She is young and goofy and I can only hope a bit of that rubs off on me.

I Heart Faces. Hugs and Kisses.

I love this shot. It was lucky. It was uncooperative. It was perfect.

I wanted eye contact and smiles with Dad. She wanted snuggles. She obviously knew better.

Come on over to I Heart Faces to see the loveliness of love caught by so many other amazing photographers!

Lollipop

The salve to erase all transgressions?

A Dum-Dum. A 0.27 ounce piece of hardened sugar on a stick will guarantee smiles and cooperation and contentment.

Why, then, is happiness so much harder for us adults? Because maybe, while eating the little lollipop, we are simultaneously folding laundry, starting a dishwasher, answering a stream of questions about black holes enveloping the earth and trying to recollect if we called in that prescription.

I need a lollipop do-over. I need to savor the Dum-Dum. Not bite it. And I need to gaze out a window. While seated. Even if I am sitting on the laundry.